Violets - January 13, 2011

Down by the rumbling creek and the tall trees-

Where I went truant from school three days a week

And therefore broke the record-

There were violets as easy in their lives

As anything you have ever seen

Or leaned down to intake the sweet breath of.

Later, when the necessary houses were built

They were gone, and who give significance

To their absence.

Oh, violets, you did signify, and what shall take

Your place?

The necessary houses have been built on the island of Puerto Rico where I now awaken.  I can’t see the sun’s rising because I’m up high in a rain forest and mist clings all around.  This forest is a remnant of once was, and so is the population of the Puerto Rican Parrot, one of the most endangered birds in the world.  I have spent the night at one of the aviaries, and hear through the swirling cloud the chattering of those in captivity who raise young to be released to the wild flock, which  is now growing.  Millions upon millions have been spent to save this bird, and decades of dedicated work by hundreds of conservationists is now bearing fruit.  It is clear to me that this bird signifies a great deal and its absence would be sorely missed.

What might disappear from your world and could anything take its place?  How?

A Meeting

She steps into the dark swamp

where the long wait ends.

The secret slippery package

drops to the weeds.

She leans her long neck and tongues it between breaths slack with exhaustion

and after a while it rises and becomes a creature

like her, but much smaller.

So now there are two. And they walk together

like a dream under the trees.

In early June, at the edge of a  field

thick with pink and yellow flowers

I meet them.

I can only stare.

She is the most beautiful woman

I have ever seen.

Her child leaps among the flowers,

the blue of the sky falls over me

like silk, the flowers burn, and I want

to live my life all over again, to begin again,

to be utterly

wild.

The melody of birth harmonizes with the haunting notes of death and calls us into the wilderness.  Entering that path, footsteps pause and our resolve falters, for we know not what is before us.  Yet if we do not go forward, we will miss the most beautiful sight we will ever see.

What is it that you would see along this path?

Coyote in the Dark, Coyotes Remembered

The darkest thing met me in the dark.

It was only a face and a brace of teeth

that held no words, though I felt a salty breath

sighing in my direction.

Once, in an autumn that is long gone,

I was down on my knees in the cranberry bog

and heard, in that lonely place,

two voices coming down the hill, and I was thrilled

to be granted this secret,

that the coyotes, walking together can talk together,

for I thought, what else could it be?

And even though what emerged

were two young women, two-legged for sure

and not at all aware of me,

their nimble, young women tongues

telling and answering, and though I knew

I have believed something probably not true,

yet it was wonderful to have believed it.

And it has stayed with me

as a present once given is forever given.

Easy and happy they sounded,

those two maidens of the wilderness

from which we have-

who knows to what furious, pitiful extent-

banished ourselves.

I have my whole life longed for animals to human speak through voice or thought transfer, such as seen in the movie Avitar.  What I would I give to be able to talk and walk with a nonhuman companion at my side!  In recent years this has lessened a bit as I learn more about behavior, interspecies neurobiology, and cognitive ethology, and apply all of this through conservation behavior.  What has shifted is that I am better at listening.

To me the Barred Owl laughs at the world in the night, well, maybe it's not laughing really, but no less clear for me.  For I feel the coolness and dark of the night, the feathered companion, competitor, or prey calling in the night, and I yearn to bring something good back to the three in the hollow of my nest tree.  As Owl perhaps I don't describe in this way, but as human my mirror neurons light up as I imagine myself staring at the blood red eclipsed moon.  I too fly silently in the night.  We have not left the wilderness.  It lives in us: our brains, our blood, our DNA, and in you. 

We walk and talk together - with words, or without words. In this space, may no beings be banished from our hearts or from this earth.

With whom will you walk and talk today?

More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Tree Are the Words of the Lord

1.

In the household of God, I have stumbled in recitation,

and in my mind I have wandered.

I have interrupted worship with discussion.

Once I extinguished the Gospel candle after all the others.

But never held the cup to my mouth lagging in gratitude.

2.

The Lord forgives many things,

so I have heard..

3.

The deer came into the field.

I saw her peaceful face and heard the shuffle of her breath.

She was sweetened by merriment and not afraid,

but bold to say

whose field she was crossing: spoke the tap of her foot:

It is God's and mine."

But only that she was born into the poem that God made, and

called the world....

6.

It's close to hopeless,

for what I want to say the red-bird

has said already, and better, in a thousand trees.

The white bear, lifting one enormous paw, has said it better.

You cannot cross one hummock or furrow but it is

His holy ground.

7.

I had such a longing for virtue, for company.

I wanted Christ to be as close as the cross I wear.

I wanted to read and serve, to touch the altar linen.

Instead I went back to the woods where not a single tree

turns its face away.

Instead I prayed, oh Lord, let me be something

useful and unpretentious.

Even the chimney swift sings.

Even the cobblestones have a task to do, and do it well.

Lord, let me be a flower, even a tare; or a sparrow.

Or the smallest bright stone in a ring worn by someone

brave and kind, whose name I will never know.

Lord, when I sleep I feel you near.

When I wake, and you are already wiping the stars away,

I rise quickly, hoping to be like your wild child

the rose, the honey-maker the honey-vine:

a bird shouting its joy as it floats

through the gift you have given us: another day.

Enough Mary! You are getting at something here that is uncomfortable.

As one author, Paul T. Corrigan, said of this volume, "Thirst," you elicit the human experience of tension between God and Earth. Your very title seeks to compare the two by saying that God's words are more beautiful than the locust tree. You would think it would not be much of a challenge, for as a child growing up in the Eastern U.S. I never found the Locust tree to be of much beauty. But then neither did I find God, his words, or his church to be much to bother about.

Times changed when I began to know of loss.

Since those dark times, my spiritual practice has been these last 15 years to find beauty in everything. Though I have not finished the journey, I go to others to ask these questions:

Is beauty in everything?

Is beauty enough?

In fact, I preached a sermon on this yesterday at the Unitarian Universalist Nature Coast congregation.

In my own experience, and in Mary's poems, I find my heart rate increase when I ask, "Why can't earth be enough?" and hear the answer, "It isn't." Like I fool, this response doesn't keep me from falling back in love over and over again with her. I also ask, "Why can't church be enough?" The answer too is, "It isn't" and damn my luck, I fall back in love over and over again with her.

Three months ago I left the parish ministry to serve as a community minister in multispecies ministry. I think it can be safely said then that I know of this tension between God and earth.. I hunger for God and thirst for reverence of the earth. There seems to always be something missing, and then suddenly everything is enough, and nothing is enough. I am a quiver of confusion and an arrow that I know not who points or where I will land.

A Native American legend is that the Thunder Spirit recognized his son by his ability to sit comfortably on locust branches, despite the thorns.

I don't know if comfort is too high a goal. Maybe though, me, no we - please join me - are truly Earth/God's children as we try to find more joy in a world where we are completely stuck. For out of these tensions, regeneration comes. Perhaps not just for us, but for the transformation of our society that comes from the wounds of loving Earth and God never enough.

In this poem, in this volume, the stakes are rising, and bless my heart, I am gaining insight into what exactly is at risk. It is the salvation of the earth's soul, which is also mine, and which is also Yours. Always.

Do you ever pit God against Earth? Do you accept both or neither?

Oxygen

Everything needs it: bone, muscles, and even,
while it calls the earth its home, the soul.
So the merciful, noisy machine

stands in our house working away in its
lung-like voice. I hear it as I kneel
before the fire, stirring with a

stick of iron, letting the logs
lie more loosely. You, in the upstairs room,
are in your usual position, leaning on your

right shoulder which aches
all day. You are breathing
patiently; it is a

beautiful sound. It is
your life, which is so close
to my own that I would not know

where to drop the knife of
separation. And what does this have to do
with love, except

everything? Now the fire rises
and offers a dozen, singing, deep-red
roses of flame. Then it settles

to quietude, or maybe gratitude, as it feeds
as we all do, as we must, upon the invisible gift:
our purest, sweet necessity: the air.

Oh my gosh, my last posting was about responding to a desperate need for union, or perhaps better said a plea for awareness of the already existing beloved union. My solution was to breathe, to share our lives with this next breath, the only gift we truly have to give and to receive. Then Mary writes this to my heart. Taking in one poem every day I am struck by the story I am retelling of our lives here on this planet. Mary's poems speak to me like a book of Rumi poems, like a book of Koans, like the Bible, like the Talmud, like the Quran, like an African chant, like a Hopi dance., and like a woodpecker's tapping on a tree. All these scriptures knock on the soul's door so that we may open to awareness, and if we just focus with intent, we can retell the stories of our lives based on love, and not on domination and power over others. It doesn't really matter what we choose to help guide us, especially since it seems that guides choose us. And Mary, you have chosen me so that I may with joy greet the sun's rising knowing that the air I take in and that becomes part of my body's molecules comes from the same air you have taken in, that the dinosaurs snorted out, and that Jesus cried. To breathe is to love our neighbors as ourselves.

What does breathing mean to you?

Honey Locust - August 8, 2010

Who can tell how lovely in June is the

honey locust tree, or why

a tree should be so sweet and live

in this world? Each white blossom

on a dangle of white flowers holds one green seed-

a new life. Also each blossom on a dangle of flower

holds a flask

of fragrance called heave, which is never sealed.

The bees circle the tree and dive into it. They are crazy

with gratitude. They are working like farmers. They are as

happy as saints. After awhile the flowers begin to

wilt and drop down into the grass. Welcome

shines in the grass.

Each year I gather

handfuls of blossoms and eat of their mealiness; the honey

melts n my mouth, the seeds make me strong,

both when they are crisps and ripe, and even at the end

when their petals have turned dully yellow.

So it is

if the heart has devoted itself to love, there is

not a single inch of emptiness. Gladness gleams

all the way to the grave.

floating in,

then the scouts going out,

then their coming back, and their dancing-

nothing different

but what happens in our own village.

What pity for the tiny souls

Who are so hopeful, and work so diligently

until time brings, as it does, the slap and the claw

Someday, of course, the bear himself

will become a bee, a honey bee, in the general mixing.

Nature, under her long green hair,

has such unbendable rules,

and a bee is not a powerful thing, even

when there are many

as people, in a town or a village.

And what, moreover, is catastrophe?

Is it the sharp sword of God,

or just some other wild body, loving its life?

Not caring a whit, black bear

blinks his horrible, beautiful eyes,

slicks his teeth with his fat and happy tongue,

and saunters on.

to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end.

I have done this a few times.

But mostly I just stand in the dark field,

in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out. Life so far doesn't have any other name

but breath and light, wind and rain.

If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet.

I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of the grass and the weeds.

As a child I loved the game kick-the-can. When the seeker would tire of the game or when the seeker had been defeated, we would yell All-y all-y in come free which means that all those still out could come in without receiving a penalty or losing the game. This phrase comes from "All ye, all ye outs in free." So to Mary, I say, all-y, ally-in come free. She as has me pinned to the mat, my heart clinched in an inescapable hold. I cry uncle and give myself over to absolute reality - that my hurt and suffering is due to some other wild body loving life. How can one live with such glad interconnectedness? Drifting I suppose in the heaven, no purpose, no agenda, nothing but breath and light. I lose myself but win the game of life and death. Mary has defeated this seeker.

How do you give yourself over to that which is greater than yourself?

What Is There Beyond Knowing

What is there beyond knowing that keeps calling to me? I can’t

Turn in any direction

But it’s there. I don’t mean

The leaves grip and shine or even the thrush’s

Silk song, but the far-off

Fires, for example,

Of the stars, heaven’s slowly turning

Theater of light, or the wind

Playful with its breath;

Or time that’s always rushing forward,

Or standing still

In the same-what shall I say-

Moment.

What I know

I could put into a pack

As if it were bread and cheese, and carry it

On one shoulder,

Important and honorable, but so small!

While everything else continues, unexplained

And unexplainable. How wonderful it is

In Mary we see such consistent homage to pantheism – the mystery and sacred interconnection is here in the life before us. In this poem I see emerging a thread of panentheism – god is all around us and beyond us as well – in time, in the sky and wind, and in the mystery. Perhaps it is a relief to be able to turn away from the face of god as she comes to us in insect and bird song and towering tree. We just need a break from all the glory so that we may be empty and therefore be vessels ready to fill up with what is. For if we try to know what is, we have sealed our soul’s containers. I myself am like a Starbucks coffee cup – I do place a lid on my spirit by wanting to know and to control, but then an accident comes my way, I tip, I leak, and I spill myself out. It’s a terrible mess, believe me, and often the catastrophe happens in public. But what could be more pleasurable than to be holding an empty cup, headed towards the coffee urn to be filled up with the stimulating unexplainable? - The natural stimulant of not knowing – and accepting our lot, eh?

What do you accept or resist not knowing, or knowing?

Black Bear in the Orchard

It was a long winter.

But the bees were mostly awake

In their perfect house,

The workers whirling their wings

To make heat.

Then the bear woke,

To hungry not to remember

Where the orchard was,

And the hives.

He was not a picklock.

He was a sledge that leaned

Into their front wall and came out

The other side.

What could the bees do?

Their stings were as nothing.

They had planned everything

Sufficiently

Except for this: castastrophe.

They slumped under the bear’s breath.

They vanished into the curl of his tongue.

Some had just enough time

To think of how it might have been-

The cold easing,

The smell of leaves and flowers.

The curl of death wraps around me this morning. Overlooking the frog enshrouded San Diego harbor in the lightening sky, I have been watching the US Navy boats come in from the night’s patrol. I can just barely make out the silhouettes of protection and outrage. I think of the navy people, surprised by death in Pearl Harbor and countless other encounters on sea and land. Perhaps caught in their bunks by the warning siren, I wonder if they had time for regrets and mournings, of what they could have been and done. I imagine they did, as I do today, for who in the end can avoid catastrophe despite all our carefully laid plans and dreams? So too who can avoid perfection in the midst of chaos and nightmare? This morning, this inner mourning, I see how the water reflects light in the dark, as our lives reflect life in death.

Have you even been surprised by death or tragedy?

North Country

In the north country now it is spring and there

Is a certain celebration. The thrush has come home…

It is okay to know only

One song if it is this one. Hear it

Rise and fall; the very elements of your soul

Shiver nicely. What would spring be

Without it? Mostly frogs. But don’t worry, he

Arrives, year after year, humble and obedient

And gorgeous. You listen and you know

You could live a better life than you do, be

Softer, kinder. And maybe this year you will

Be able to do it. Here how his voice rises and falls. There is no way to be

Sufficiently grateful for the gifts we are given, no way to speak the Lord’s name

Often enough, though we do try, and

Especially now, as the dappled breast

Breathes in the pines and heaven’s windows in the north country, now spring has come,

Are opened wide.

There has yet to be a day when I read one of Mary’s poems that I don’t feel as if I have witnessed a miracle. Some days the miracle brings a tightening to the chest that proceeds an “oh yes, this is what love is.” Today is one of those days and poems. I have been lately thinking how what I have to give and receive is the next breath. It is all that I have control over – to breath in peace and to breath out love. To breathe, dedicating absolute love and union with the beloved world is the one song I have and it is sung in the rise and the fall of my chest. I do not know if I can live a better life next year or be kinder even to those I love most, but I do know that now, for at least this next breath, I can pray with my breath and so speak the Lord’s name. In this way, perhaps I can lessen a bit hell on earth and give heaven’s hope to others, one breath, one song, and one bird at a time.

What song do you sing in gratitude?